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English protects languages | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| randy310 Senior Member United States Joined 7069 days ago 117 posts - 117 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 25 of 46 12 August 2005 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Well said Socrates! Of course you are right. How could a contrived language like esperanto produce anything what was not equally contrived? A language can be seen as the gateway to the soul of a civilization. It is always evolving. The idea of esperanto is quite intriguing...but it will never be more than artificial. English is still and will be for the forseeable future the heavy weight champ of languages. Read what Barry Farber had to say about it.
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| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7178 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 26 of 46 12 August 2005 at 9:18am | IP Logged | ||
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How can you say that? All language is contrived. We make what we want out of it.
Portuguese was differentiated from Spanish in part by monastic scribes who purposely chose more latinate forms than were common in the Iberian diasystem which pre-dated a true Spanish and a true Portuguese form. English grammar is completely artificially based on Latin. Many of our words were specifically chosen to either make the language more French or more Saxon, depending on the fashion at the time (for example choosing "Queen" over "Cwene" to appear more French/Latinate). Italian scribes chose to implement "il" instead of "lo", because it was though to sound more melodious. In fact, the entire idea of a single Italian language is contrived. Had early Italian aristocracy not decided to use the dialect of Florence as a lingua franca, then every Italian town would have its own language. What if they had purposely decided to use Neapolitan instead of purposely deciding to use Florentine? The Italian language would be wholly different, and the dialect of Florence would be struggling just as the dialect of Naples is now. Modern Hebrew is an artificial modernization of Ancient Hebrew. It blends European, Middle Eastern, and Classical Hebrew variants. It was created almost entirely by a single man. It is now spoken by about 6 million people. You bet there are books, poems, songs, and other cultural documents originally in Modern Hebrew. French, arguably the Queen of artificiality in language, makes up words not to describe new things, but to replace borrowed words. As a matter of fact, many languages do. Is it not contrived to ignore popular usage and demand that speakers use words made up by some lofty language academy whose members call themselves "les Immortels"? And what of spelling and language reforms? Is planning the evolution of a natural language not equally as contrived as planning it from the start? Why is new German spelling not contrived, according to you? If it is, then why is it completely alright while Esperanto is not? Furthermore, why can't a contrived language be a lingua franca? The whole idea of Esperanto is that its universality lies in its artificiality. It is linked to no culture but a World culture, it is easily learned by all, at least in theory. In practice, it is easily learned at least by Europeans, thus perfect as a European lingua franca. And what about Indonesian? It is an artificial language based on Malay. No one speakes Indonesian as a native language, yet it is the lingua franca for the over 100 million Indonesians. Is Indonesian also contrived? Maybe, but that is what makes it ideal as a communication tool. The artificial nature of both Esperanto and Indonesian makes them perfect tools of communication. Esperanto carries no real excess baggage of literature or "culture". You don't learn it for access to beautiful poems, you learn it (in theory) to be able to communicate easily with many more people than any one Romance Language would allow. Even if only Romance Language speakers learned it, it would allow you to speak with people who you would otherwise need up to 6 languages to communicate with. Edited by Giordano on 12 August 2005 at 9:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| czech Senior Member United States Joined 7198 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English* | Message 27 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
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A native woman has told me that in Fujian the teacher speaks Fujianese and Mandarin, and the class is done in Fujianese. But when they open the book, they use Mandarin of course. Also, she says Fujianese does not have tones, because it's not written. That's a weird assumption.
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| Socrates Groupie United Kingdom Joined 7065 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes | Message 28 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Giordano I think thou dost protest too much.
Please continue to promote and speak Esperanto if thats where your interest lies but why not try Klingon...at least there are lively Trekky conventions in which to try it out. Yes indeed all languages are man-made.....lol, but have evolved as if part of the landscape. Each language is the ultimate expression of the Earth. Esperanto is a cloned insipid product of our modern times and by the way you re-iterated once again it has no real literature to speak of or inherent interest of which to read. There will be at least half of the world's 6,000 or so languages dead or dying by the year 2050. And that is sad. So we don't need to be inventing anymore of these new fangled languages to fade away in the meantime methinks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7192 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 29 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
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There are a lot of common misconceptions of Esperanto being spread in this thread.
1) Firstly, Esperanto has native speakers. One case that I know of this, is that a Japanese person and an English person god maried and had a child. Neither one of these people spoke eachothers language, but they both spoke Esperanto. As a result, the child was brought up with Esperanto as the native language. 2) Esperanto is changing. Unlike what many sources say, Esperanto has changed a fair bid since it was first created. Various grammatical concepts were dropped or changed, and new words have been created in order to cope with technical and scientific vocabulary. 3) Esperanto does a fair ammount of literature and culture. There are over 25,000 books, some of which are translated, but many are original Esperanto works. There are more than a hundered Esperanto magazines that are published and distributed regularly. There are actually internet live radio broadcasts in Esperanto, and some bands that actually preform and publish their music in Esperanto. Socrates: Every year the "Universala Kongreso de Esperanto" is held, where often thousands of Esperantists assemble to use Esperanto. Anywhere from 800 people to over 6000 people have attended these each year, depending on the venue. So what I'm saying, is that even though Esperanto is artificial, it still has many of the benefits. Although I agree that someones time would still be better spent learning a natural language, Esperanto still shares some of the benefits. Edited by Darobat on 12 August 2005 at 10:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Socrates Groupie United Kingdom Joined 7065 days ago 40 posts - 40 votes | Message 30 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
So they grew up speaking Esperanto as a first language ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| laxxy Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7123 days ago 172 posts - 177 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 31 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Russian used to fulfill a similar lingua franca role within Soviet Union and to an extent within the whole eastern block at one time. Now it is no longer really used outside of the former Soviet Union and even within it (except for Russia proper) its' use is on a decline, so it is conceivable that it would in many cases be replaced by English. Even though now there are almost no people who would know English better than Russian.
Something similar could in theory happen in China as well, imho... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7192 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 32 of 46 12 August 2005 at 10:37am | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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